[Vision2020] I Like Being Like My Dad: A Father's Day Tribute

[Nicholas Gier]

Greetings:
Happy Father's Day to all of you out there.  That includes men who have had
father roles as mentors, coaches, etc.
I'm interested to know what kind of relationships you had with your
fathers.
If you would rather listen than read, my radio commentary for KRFP is
attached. This long version will be published in Pocatello's Idaho State
Journal tomorrow.
Go Daddy, Go!
Nick

*I Like Being Like My Dad: *

*The “Plagiarism of Inheritance”*



*Take care of your actions because they will become habits.  *

*Take care of your habits because they will form your character. *

*Take care of your character because it will form your destiny.*

—The Dalai Lama



*Isn’t it about becoming one’s parents, about taking*

*on their very habits, whether you want to or not?*

— Lydia Davis, “How Shall I Mourn Them”?



*Because you are, I am*.

—South African Maxim



It is said that people do not appreciate the fullness of their parents’
love until they have children of their own.  That is certainly true in my
case. In my teenage and early adult years, I rebelled against my parents.
I developed my liberal views quite early, and I became a student leader
against the Vietnam War at Oregon State University.

*My Parents Voted for Wallace!*

My father was a staunch Democrat most of his adult life, but the dramatic
changes of the 1960s were deeply unsettling for him, just as they were for
many in his generation.  My mother worked on the Barry Goldwater campaign
of 1964, but my dad still voted for LBJ.  I was in a state of shock when
they both voted for George Wallace in 1968.

Instead of trying to understand my parents, I wrote nasty letter after
nasty letter chastising them for what I perceived to be their political
ignorance. No matter how strong my criticisms, however, my parents always
expressed their love for me. It seemed that the more I rebelled, the more
they accepted me. That didn’t make any sense.  I felt that I didn’t deserve
their love. I certainly did not want to be like them.

*Much Like My Father After All*

Over the years I gradually reconciled with my parents, especially after I
married and had a child of my own. I’ve now made the same discovery that
Harvard Professor James Wood did: I am actually more like my dad than I
ever thought. In an essay in *The Atlantic* (1/16/13) entitled “Becoming
Them: Our Parents, Our Selves,” Wood was surprised to find that he had
fallen into some of the same habits as his father.

Sober and serious just like my dad, I now enjoy my evenings sitting in my
easy chair reading newspapers, journals, and magazines.  The reading
material is of course different: his was *Field and Stream*, *Guns and Ammo*,
and *U.S. News and World Report*; mine is *The Economist*, *The New York
Review of Books*, *The Atlantic*, *The Nation*, and *The New Republic*.

*The Gier Diet and Metabolism*

My dad had oatmeal, fruit, toast and jam every morning, and so do I. He had
meat slices, cheese, and fruit for lunch, and I have tofurkey instead. His
standard dinner was meat, potatoes, and veggies, and mine is the same
except fish as my only meat.My daughter has reverted to her grandfather’s
meat diet, and perpetuates the Gier metabolism: three square meals, and if
they are late, the Giers gets crabby. James Wood calls this the “plagiarism
of inheritance.”

*The Well Dressed Radical (at least for a while)*

By karma and imitation, much of our lives are written for us. Even in my
rebellion I was much like dad, who was always well dressed. As a war
protester I always wore a sport jacket and tie. There he was: Nick Gier,
Jr., the Well Dressed Radical. After I had applied for a job at Yale
Divinity School, my dad’s first comment was: “Now you will have to wear a
suit, son.” After growing a beard and wearing my hair long, that is when I
stopped being like him. Sorry, Dad.

*We Could Not Tell a Joke*

My dad could not tell a joke, and I inherited that disability from him. He
wouldn’t even try, but I always embarrass myself when I fumble one. (I once
had a friend coach me, but it didn’t help.) The only joke that seems to
work for me is when I tell people that I’m funny about twice a month and
that is usually by accident.

I once made a ham and cheese sandwich for a lovely meat-eating lady who
insisted that I call her Mom#2. I didn’t tell her that it was tofu ham and
non-diary cheese, and she said it was the best sandwich she had ever eaten.
When I told her what it was, she never trusted me about food again. My
father would never have played a practical joke like this. He would have
been afraid of hurting someone’s feelings.

*Beat Him Up, Daddy!*

Our live-in maternal grandmother had apartments, and my father helped her
when her tenants didn’t pay their rent. I’ll never forget one summer
evening in the 1950s when my dad came back to the car empty-handed and
frustrated about a deadbeat tenant.  From the backseat my brother and I
offered our advice in unison: “Why don't you go beat him up?”

            We were devastated by his response: “Sons, I could not beat my
way out of wet paper bag.”  Little did I know that in the depths of my
initial disappointment the seeds planted by this humane and sensitive man
would come to fruition. A little more than a decade later I would be
chanting “Make Love not War,” would be studying Asian religions, would be
senior fellow at my university’s peace institute, and would write a book on
Gandhi.

*Gier Boys Run from their Father*

When my brother and I were born, my dad was a train master on the Union
Pacific.  He would be out on assignment for a week at a time.  When he came
home, we would run away from him. We did not know who this strange man
was.  This broke his heart, and he decided to give up a very good job and
an even better pension for his sons.

My parents sold everything that they could not pack in a 1947 Mercury Coupe
and moved to Eagle Point, Oregon, where my father bought a dairy farm.
Just our luck, milk prices tanked and within a year and half we moved to
Medford, where my brother and I received excellent educations and my father
made a good living selling cars.

*The Man Who Couldn’t Whip*

My mother was a strict disciplinarian and the refrigerator calendar was
covered with daily demerit marks.  She warned us that if we ever reached a
certain number of those black marks, our dad would give us a whipping.  My
mother often raised her voice, but she never raised her hand against us.

One day our demerits had increased so much that, when our father came home
that evening, my mom told him that his sons had to be punished.  I can
still remember my dad standing over us with his belt: he simply couldn't do
it, and it certainly didn't help that my brother and I were laughing at
him. He was still not credible as a “real” man.

*My Father: A Truly Good Man*

At my father’s memorial, my daughter began with the declaration “my
grandfather was a truly good man.” There is a direct line of goodness from
grandfather to granddaughter. This could not be said of me because there is
too much of my mother in me. Not evil, mind you, but a feisty streak that
often got both of us in trouble.

Nick Gier of Moscow taught religion and philosophy for 31 years at the
University of Idaho. Read “Riding the Rails with my Dad” at
www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/DadRR.htm. More on my mother at
www.tomandrodna.com/nick­_gier/mothertribute.pdf.
<http://www.tomandrodna.com/nick%1f_gier/mothertribute.pdf.> Email him at
ngier006 at gmail.com.


A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.
-Greek proverb
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.
--Immanuel Kant
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